


Walking on Glass Floors

by BlackEyedGirl



Category: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Post-Series, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackEyedGirl/pseuds/BlackEyedGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a lot of ways, Jordan's first week back at NBS is similar to her very first week there. She is the person who counts the ways that it might be different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking on Glass Floors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pitry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitry/gifts).



> Title based off Dessa - The Bullpen.
> 
> With thanks to everywherestars for the read-through and reassurance.

_Monday_

“He asked me if it had ‘changed my priorities’.”

“What?” Jack spares her a glance, looking up from the screen of his phone. 

Jordan is more likely to end up being condescended to when she has Jack’s full attention than when she doesn’t, but she presses on anyway. “I know!”

“No, Jordan, I mean if _what_ had changed your priorities?”

She stares at him. “Motherhood, Jack, if motherhood had changed my priorities.”

“And what did you tell him?” he asks.

“I told him that where once I thought about ratings and the state of the nation, now my only concerns are whether breast is in fact best and just how cute this bunny onesie is, what do you think I told him?”

Jack doesn’t hesitate. “Knowing you? I think there’s a very real possibility you told him exactly that, with that exact tone, which is why I’m asking you.”

“You gonna fire me if I did?”

Jack says, “No, I’m going to go and ask PR why they set up your first interview back with an idiot, and then we’re going to do some damage control but first-?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jordan admits.

“Okay then.”

“I said that I loved my kid and that of course motherhood is life-changing.”

“But?”

“But I still care about ratings so sue me, asshole.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Go back to work, would you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He rolls his eyes some more and waits until she’s almost out of the room before saying, “Seriously. These people can’t find their way to their studios without- they missed you out there. Go back to work.”

Jordan smiles. It’s been nearly four months, he doesn’t need to tell her, but she doesn’t mind hearing it. “Going.”

 

*

 

Jordan calls Danny later in the afternoon. “Hey. We’re having lunch. You want some?”

“You and the baby?”

“Me and the baby. Honestly, I kind of thought you’d be here already.” Danny had been pretty reluctant to go back to work and risk the possibility that Rebecca would give her first smile to somebody other than him (she didn’t) or that Jordan would trip and fall and the new nanny wouldn’t notice for hours (also a no). He went back at the end of August to get the show ready for the new season, and she had to wait another month to join him. But it’s good that she’s back now – the first episode of the new season airs Friday and she worries about the kind of things he and Matt get up to without adequate supervision.

Danny says, “I’m, you know, respecting your space. There were conversations, I remember them well.”

“Those were mostly conversations about how we still needed a nanny because I was going to need some time to work.”

“I would have taken her,” he says. “One of those sling things.”

“That’s great, honey, but I really don’t want our baby girl’s first word to be damn it.”

“That’s two words.”

“Not the way you say it.”

She can hear him considering that one. He says, “Okay. But I can come over there.”

“Yes, Danny, you can come over here.”

“I’ll see you in ten minutes.” He pauses. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Bring noodles.”

Danny laughs and hangs up. 

Jordan heads next door to the office she has freed up for Rebecca and Caroline. Caroline is saving up to do a doctorate in social work, and she came highly recommended by one of the women in Jordan’s pre-natal group. She’s quiet with Jordan but great with Rebecca, and Danny hasn’t scared her off yet, which Jordan considers to be an excellent qualification. 

Caroline is playing with Rebecca on the brightly coloured mat on the floor. Jordan asks, “Can I take her to lunch?”

“I’m sure she’d like that.” Caroline puts Rebecca’s socks and jacket back on and lifts her up. She settles her carefully into Jordan’s arms. “What time do you need me to come and get her?”

“Probably an hour? My next meeting isn’t until four, so I might keep her a little longer if that’s okay.”

“I’ll stick around the offices, just give me a call when you want me back.”

Jordan nods and carries Rebecca to her own office. “Hi, sweetheart. How’s your day been?” She opens the door. “Your mommy has been talking to idiots, but that’s okay. Mommy does that a lot.”

Danny laughs. “Interview went well, I guess?”

“Some people really try my commitment to a free press.”

“I know. I brought noodles from the place you like.”

“Thank you.” Jordan settles Rebecca into her chair and turns it so she can see both Jordan and Danny. “How’s Matt?”

“Well, it’s Monday,” Danny says.

“So he’s choking.”

“He’s not so much choking as- yeah, he’s choking. He’ll work it out.”

“You always say that,” Jordan points out.

“And he always works it out.”

“Yes, but the last time involved a fairly alarming spiral downwards first, and I’d like to avoid that. I’m pretty sure the only reason that scandal didn’t break at the end of last season was because we were in middle of two or three others at the time.”

“I’ll tell him that, it’ll cheer him right up.”

“Danny.”

“If he’s not on track by Wednesday, I’ll let you know.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Danny is eating one handed, having relinquished the other to Rebecca’s firm grip, her whole hand around one of his fingers. It’s instinct, the doctor says - she has no real control of what she wants to hold onto yet. Danny doesn’t believe that. Danny looks back over to Jordan and says, “Trevor Loughlin called me.”

“I know,” she says, “he called me first.”

“He wants me to direct an episode of Nations.”

“I know that too. You want to do it?”

“It would be during the break, it’s for February.”

“Yes. Danny, do you want to do it?”

“I haven’t directed in a while.”

“You can get bonded again in a year.” They haven’t talked about this. They should have, really, between the engagement and the baby and everything else that happened. But they haven’t talked about what happens at the end of the contract that Danny and Matt are halfway through.

“It could be good,” Danny says. “The episode. Trevor sent me the script. There’s a possibility he’s offering it to me as a mitzvah, which is more than a little humiliating from a kid of twenty, but it could be good.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s older than twenty and what do you mean a mitzvah?” Jordan asks.

“It’s a- ask Matt, it’s a- it’s a nice thing. It’s what kids do for guys who pointed them in the right direction a few years ago before they were blackmailed into not being able to work.”

“You work.”

“I’m kidding, honey, it’s fine.” He doesn’t recant the blackmail claim though. He knows that it bugs her. He says, “I’m just locating the humour in being offered a comeback gig. He’s a good kid. You don’t mind if I take him up on the offer? It won’t interfere with the show, and the studio’s in town so I won’t be gone.”

“You remember that I know all this already, right? I’m happy for you, if you want to do it. I loved your work before we’d even met.”

Danny smiles at her. “Thank you.” He finishes eating but she can tell his head is already with camera positions and potential rewrites. Jordan meant it – she knew his directing work before she knew him – but she wouldn’t have offered to run off to Cabo with him on the back of his cinematography and editing choices. He had stumbled up off the bed and worried about stealing her hotel room, and Jordan hadn’t known it yet but that was the moment. It was one of her better days, though she wouldn’t have thought it at the time: Wes was fired and Danny was available and Danny and Matt didn’t trust her at all yet but she had always liked a challenge.

She asks, “You need me to talk to Matt? About the episode?”

“I’ll talk to him,” Danny says. “He’ll be fine.” Matt is actually only slightly less proprietorial over Danny than he is with Harriet, but he’ll cope. Jordan knows already that she’s going to end up talking to him about it either way. Jack used to say that she needed to stop investing in the micro-details of what goes on at her shows, Studio 60 more than most, but he seems to have given up on that fight. He recognises a lost cause when he sees one, and they have more interesting battles to be waging. Jordan makes a mental note to go and talk to him about the Nations promo spots, and finishes her lunch.

 

* * *

_Tuesday_

“Explain to me again why you didn’t just let me do the piece?” Martha asks. They’re having dinner in the NBS dining room. Marty looks like she just walked out of a photo-spread on working professional intellectuals; Jordan very nearly left her office with her shirt unbuttoned after a quick breastfeeding session. Marty told her she looked great and asked to see Rebecca before they went down to eat.

“Because you’re my friend,” Jordan says.

“Seems like an excellent reason for me to do it.”

“You write the story and it’s my friend saying nice things. Jim Matthews writes the story and-.”

“It’s an asshole saying barely disguised snide things?”

“It makes it an actual story. About the network, not just me.”

“Honey,” Martha says, “you’re still the story. Probably you’re going to be the story here ‘til you quit or until Matt finally does his very own Wes Mandell and either proposes to Harriet Hayes live on air or sets fire to the theatre.”

“Well thank you, Marty, for putting that image in my head.”

She grins. “You’re welcome.”

“Marty.”

Martha asks, “What was it he said, that pissed you off so much? It wasn’t just the priorities thing, you knew he was going to ask that, they’re all going to ask that.”

“I know,” Jordan says.

“So what was it?”

Jordan taps her fingernails on the table. “I had an abortion in nineteen ninety nine. He knew- he didn’t say he knew, but he knew, because there is apparently nothing I ever did that these guys don’t know about. But he wanted to get me talking about abortion.”

“Jordan-.”

“I don’t see the contradiction. I had an abortion once and I had a baby eight years later. Except in so far as both events involved my uterus they had very little to do with each other.”

“Jordan.”

“I _wanted_ Rebecca. I chose to have her. Isn’t that- she’ll know, always, that Danny and I had all the other choices in the world and we chose her.”

“I know.”

“That’s what’s important to me, not any of this- I’ve got Rebecca and Danny, and then I’ve got the network. I’ve got Studio 60 and Nations and a crapload of alternative programming I have to pretend to care about. I have opinions, sure, and I’m not shy about airing them but that doesn’t have anything to do with my daughter or my fiancée.”

Martha smiles. “I’m very fond of you, Jordan, but you know that’s not how it works.”

“Yeah.” Jordan knows she could have a better relationship with the press. She’s not convinced that she could have it the way Jack thinks – it’s not about how she sits in her chair or why she doesn’t raise her voice. She could fix all that and still be a woman in a position of power and still get torn apart for actions which by Jack would just be a demonstration that he has balls. That’s the way it goes but it doesn’t mean she has to lie down and take it. 

Martha changes the subject. “When’s the wedding?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You and Danny. You got engaged the day Rebecca was born, right? Are you planning on a long engagement?”

“You want to do a photo spread on the wedding? Maybe I’m waiting until I’m able to fit into the dress.”

Raising her eyebrows, Martha says, “Really?”

“No, not really. We’re not in a hurry.” Jordan had been pregnant before she’d met Danny, though she hadn’t known it yet; she had become a mother and a fiancée on the same night. She’s aware that some people would say they did all these things in the wrong order but Jordan can’t imagine it working out any other way. They haven’t talked about a wedding date yet, because they’ve been working on raising a four-month old. She has the ring, resized, on her finger, and the three of them share a home. The rest can wait.

 

* * *

_Wednesday_

Jordan takes Rebecca over to the studio. They're set up for a sketch in a park but they must be taking a break because there's no one around. Jordan sits on the bench and dangles Rebecca’s feet in the probably fake autumn leaves. They crackle and the baby laughs. It’s only been two weeks since she first fixed her eyes on Jordan and gurgled with something that was definitively laughter, so it’s still a novelty. Though almost everything she does still feels like novelty. 

Danny walks over with Cal. "Hey."

"Hey. Oh, are we- do we need not to be doing this, is anyone going to be-?"

"If they are, they can kiss my ass," Danny says pleasantly, through a wide smile. "Hi, baby girl. You like the leaves, huh?" He kneels down in front of Rebecca and tosses some of the leaves up for her.

Jordan looks over his shoulder. "Cal?"

"We've got plenty of leaves, Jordan, don't worry about it."

"Okay. Are we in the way over here?"

"Matt sent everyone out of the building for an hour," Cal says. "Not sure if it was for their safety or his."

"He's blocked?"

"Little bit."

"Then he's really going to love this conversation. Danny, can you hang onto your daughter for a while? I need to go talk to Matt about moving a sketch."

"Good luck with that." He takes Rebecca.

"I'm still his boss, you know. Still your boss, for that matter."

Danny smiles. "Yes, ma'am." He looks at Cal. "She likes it when I call her that."

"She really does not," Jordan says.

"It's a thing we do."

"It's really not."

"It could be,” he says.

"I'm going to talk to Matt before you scandalise Cal any more."

"I'm not-" Cal begins.

"Cal?"

"He's up in his office."

Jordan heads upstairs to Matt’s office. She waits for Suzanne to give her the nod to go in, because she was raised to be polite and because she’s not Jack. However, she’s still a little pissed off about the fact that he’s been dodging her calls all day. “Does your phone not work?”

“What? Hi. Suzanne?”

Suzanne sticks her head through the doorway. “Did you not listen to me telling you that Jordan was here?”

“I’m still forty minutes short, I’m not listening to anything right now,” Matt says. Suzanne rolls her eyes and goes back to her desk. Matt looks at Jordan. “I really thought she knew that by now.”

“Matt,” Jordan says.

“You have notes.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t one of the benefits of my best friend dating the President of the Network that I _don’t_ have to be the one in a room listening to advertiser notes?”

“I don’t know, Matty,” Jordan says, “I would have thought one of the benefits of practically being your sister-in-law would be that I wouldn’t have to come _lock you in your office_ to get a response from you.”

He grins at that. “Sure, okay. So what’s up?”

“The Primaries?” 

“It’s funny.”

“It might be funny in January, when people know who the candidates are without you having to announce their names at the top of the sketch. It might even be funny now, and I’m not saying don’t do it, because it would actually help us if you could take a swing at a Democrat now and again. But can you not lead off your twenty-first season with a sketch about how primary season is gonna kick off in four months?”

“You’d rather we open with O.J. Simpson?”

“I think it couldn’t hurt.”

Matt shrugs. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Sure, fine? I wasn’t wedded to it up front.”

Jordan looks at him. “I feel like this is going to come back and bite me later.”

“I’m trying something new,” Matt says.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Not rejecting network notes just because they’re notes from the network.”

“That’s a good change,” Jordan says.

“Plus, sometimes you’re right.”

“More often than I’m wrong, even.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far...” He grins at her. “Jordan, I’m not going to the mat for this one. If you tell me we need something less political at the top, let’s do that. But I want to keep Toy Factory in the first ten.”

“You got it.”

“You weren’t going to argue that one to begin with, were you?”

“Nope. Although I’d kind of like to know why you thought I was. I’ll be watching the feed of the dress, just so you know.”

“I will bear that in mind.” He makes a note on the legal pad in front of him, and underlines it three times, which isn’t ominous _at all_. 

 

* * *

_Thursday_

Jordan spends the morning listening to pilot pitches. They’re not in a position yet to know how many orders they’ll be making, or how many holes there will be in the schedule. Nations aired its first episode the night before, with the positive word she had been expecting after the advance reviews. Numbers were good, but it’ll be next week and the weeks after that before the real test comes. Still, if Jack thinks she won’t be beating him over the head with their number one in adults eighteen to forty-nine, sixteen share, then he is going to be very surprised in their meeting later today.

The pitches are mostly bad, because pitches are almost always mostly bad. Jordan only personally takes meetings with the ones with promise (or where they have a contract with the potential show-runner, or where they owe someone a favour). She’ll be meeting as many women as she can, and as many black, Hispanic or Asian writers. This is a long term project she’s in now and sometimes she looks back at her year to live and laughs.

She hears a half-way interesting pitch about an Enron type scandal which will make some of their advertisers nervous. Jordan marks that one down for a script order. 

She has one sitcom ending this season and one that she’s pretty sure she’s going to have to cancel, which leaves an hour’s worth of hole in the comedy block. Sitcoms are difficult to pitch – the premise never sounds like anything much and so you end up relying on how funny the writers seem and who might be interested in working on it. She notes one from a comedy staple and one from the only woman in a twelve-man writer’s room. If she used one as the lead in for the other it might balance out okay.

Kevin comes in after the last meeting of the morning. “Can I get you anything?”

“Coffee would be great.” She’s allowing herself one cup a day right now, while she’s breastfeeding and still accidentally reading horror stories about blood-brain barriers. 

“Sure. And Jack wants to see you when you have a minute.”

“I’m seeing Jack later today.”

Kevin shrugs. “He asked for you to call him when you’re free.”

Jordan waits for the coffee to be brought to her desk, and then she walks round to Jack’s office. She gets waved straight in, which could be a good or a bad thing.

Jack looks at her. “What are you doing about Matt and Danny? They signed two year contracts, right? You’re on this?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Jack says, “Okay. Sit down.”

“Sure. Are you firing me?”

“Am I what?”

“It was brought to my attention that if I make it to Christmas, I’ll be your longest serving Network President. I wondered if maybe you were bored.” Jordan really wishes people would stop telling her these types of things. Sometimes a fun fact is fun for nobody. Though she supposes it’s possible that the reporters at the Monday morning press conference actually enjoy springing that kind of thing on her. She supposes she had that coming.

Jack stares at her. “No, Jordan, I’m not- have you done something today that makes you think-?”

“Did you read the piece in the Times?”

“I did,” he says.

“And?”

“You already told me about the ‘screw you, asshole’ thing, so I wasn’t so surprised by that.”

“It was ‘sue me, asshole’ but okay.”

“Okay.” 

Jack waves his hand at the chair again. Jordan sits down and waits for him to tell her what the problem is.

Jordan tries to behave as though things will turn out all right. If she didn’t, she would never get anything done. The things she does affects the jobs of tens of thousands of people, billions of dollars, the _stock market_ , for God’s sake. So she behaves as though her choices are the right ones, as though she has complete confidence in what she’s doing, because if she didn’t she would never get out of bed in the morning. She has a thick skin, or the ability to pretend like she does, which in this business is practically the same thing.

She can't act now as though she has a year to live. She might. Jordan knows as well as anyone how close she came this year. But she can't act like it. She has a daughter, she can't act like the future is one blank slate. And there's a change of priority, right there. Maybe she should have mentioned that in the interview on Monday. She isn't sure the reporter would have understood.

Jack asks, “Are you doing all right? You went from zero to development season pretty fast there.”

“I’m fine. I’ve been working from home, you know that.”

“I do. You conference called into the upfronts from the hospital and they wheeled you into the TCA Press Tour against the advice of pretty much everyone, including me, so yeah I do-.”

Jordan shrugs. “And if I hadn’t, you would have gone in there with Hallie so excuse me for wanting to have a job to come back to.”

“You were always going to-.”

They both know that’s not true. Jack is a good man but he is not sentimental. If he had any suspicion at all that she couldn’t cope with what they brought her in to do any more, there would not have been much of a grace period. Jordan says, “A real job, not just a title you were letting me hang onto until you could replace me without looking like a jackass for firing the woman in a hospital with a newborn.”

“You would be surprised how little I care about looking like a jackass,” he answers, deadpan. He walks across the office. “Drink?”

“I can’t, I-.”

“Water, juice?”

She holds up her coffee mug. “I’m fine. You go ahead.”

He gets a bottle of water from the cooler and walks back to sit across from her. “Nations isn’t bad.”

“You watched it?”

“I watch TV.”

Jordan raises her eyebrows. “Jack.”

“I watch some TV. I watched this one. I had an advertising rep call.”

“Oh?”

“You want to start giving me numbers, don’t you? You realise they send me the numbers the same time they send them to you.”

“Yeah, but my ‘I told you so’ really only works when I say it out loud.”

“One episode,” he says.

“Sixteen share.”

“One episode.”

“Number one in the timeslot and the demo.”

“Fine.” Jack spreads his arms wide. “So why the hell did you think I was about to fire you?”

“We weren’t supposed to be meeting til four.”

Jack’s mouth opens and closes once before he gets the sentence together. “I have to go to New York, you lunatic, Wilson wants me to- so I wanted to meet you before that. Tell me about the pilots. And if you can tell me about them in a way which doesn’t make me want to gnaw off my own arm at their worthiness, that would be great.”

“Sure. Well the first one takes a good long look at America’s relationship to business ethics.” Jordan grins. “Your face right now. Okay, so if we bought it I think we would be selling the conspiracy angle.”

 

* * *

_Friday_

Jordan likes going to the studio on Friday night. Tonight, especially, the first episode of the season, she wants to be around. She’s not one of them, she knows that, even if she talks like they do. But she enjoys the process of television more than most people that she’s met in jobs like hers. It’s not like it was in Wilson’s day – most people don’t just work their way up from intern any more. Jordan trained as a lawyer, and most people she met on the path to this job had degrees in communications or marketing, and maybe hadn’t been in a studio like this in their lives. 

Nobody blinks at her backstage now, even if she still gets a few alarmed-respectful nods. In Harriet’s dressing room, though, she is greeted with a bright smile and a demand to hold Rebecca. Harriet is wearing her Juliette Lewis wig and suit, and Jordan is a little worried that Rebecca is going to spit up over the jacket. 

Harriet accepts the cloth Jordan gives her and takes Rebecca against her shoulder. “Hey, sweetheart. Are you here to watch the show?”

Jordan’s cellphone rings and she excuses herself to answer it. Hallie is following up on a couple of specials she has in the schedule, one in November and one in January. Jordan is pretty sure Hallie thinks if she keeps talking about the Thanksgiving themed ‘inspirational’ special, then Jordan won’t ask too many questions about Notice, which is essentially Survivor in the workplace. 

Hallie says, “They agree to it, they’re willing to fight for the jobs. I think it’s demeaning to them to say that they don’t know what they’re doing.”

“I’m not saying they don’t know what they’re doing, Hallie, I’m saying it’s demeaning to play out our employment crisis for entertainment with real people’s lives. But I gave you that one, so you can run with it. Just remember that your success rate is fifty-fifty right now and one more lawsuit is going to push your development slate in an unfortunate direction. Let me know when you’ve got the numbers for The Gifts.” She hangs up.

Harriet smiles at her. “Feel better?”

Jordan rolls her shoulders. “Batting five hundred would get you a place in any team in the majors.”

“I’m pretty sure batting five hundred would get you an asterisk beside your name but this isn’t baseball. Let her be a little scared.”

“That doesn’t make me a terrible person?”

“It makes you a good boss,” Harriet says. “We do our best work when we’re scared.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Of course, it also makes us paranoid and unsuited for any kind of life in the real world. But that’s the price you pay.”

Jordan joins in with Harriet’s laughter. “Well, as long as we’re producing good television.” She takes Rebecca back. “I’ll let you get ready. See you after the show?”

“You’re bringing Rebecca to the wrap party?”

“If her schedule holds, I’ll be feeding her before the show, she’ll be sleeping during it and the party, and when she wakes for another feed we’ll know to head back.” When the baby stops waking so much during the night, Jordan will probably take her home before the show and put her to bed, and leave Caroline to watch her for the evening. But while she’s still waking every few hours crying for her mom (or at least the milk her mom can provide) Jordan doesn’t like the idea of not being there. And Rebecca can sleep anywhere, once she’s warm and fed. She’s like both of her parents that way.

Jordan heads up to the stage and then to the box. She leans over the balcony and looks down at the grips running around over the stage.

Danny is sitting in his usual spot. He sees her and waves. She must look like an idiot but she grins and waves back. He mouths something she can’t make out and gets up from his chair. When he disappears through the door below where she’s standing, Jordan decides to just stay where she is. He gets up there a minute or two later. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Jordan says. “Shouldn’t you be overseeing things down there?”

“If they don’t know what they’re doing by now they never will.”

“How was the dress?” Jordan asks. She had the feed up on her television while she was checking over the new budget projections, but that isn’t the same as the live experience.

“Pretty good,” Danny says. “Not good enough for Matt, but you know...”

“I do.”

“I had a weird conversation earlier,” he says.

“I imagine you have a lot of weird conversations.”

“I was over at NBS, they needed me to sign some things. I ran into Jack Rudolph.” 

“That’s the beginning of plenty of weird conversations,” Jordan agrees.

Danny doesn’t laugh along with her. He says, “Jack said something- I didn’t quite get it, something about you being worried about your job?”

“Why does Jack keep telling you these things?”

“I don’t know, I think he assumes I have some kind of handle on your particular brand of strangeness. And we both know that’s not true. Seriously though, what did he say? Did he imply anything that... because I- he can’t think I would let that go.”

“You should.” Jordan resettles Rebecca in her arms.

“What?”

“Let it go. He didn’t imply anything but even if he did, it wouldn’t be anything I can’t handle.”

“I know that. But if he made you think that, then maybe I need to-.”

Loving Danny and wanting to kill him, just a little bit, are two conflicting feelings that Jordan is very used to having at the same time. “No, Danny. I don’t need you standing between me and all the bad things out there.”

“Jordan.”

“For one thing, if you’re standing in front of me, it makes it really difficult to walk anywhere.”

He runs his hand through his hair. “So where do you want me standing?”

Jordan takes his hand. “Here beside me seems to be working okay, what do you think?”

Danny looks her in the eyes for a long moment. Then he turns her hand over in his and kisses her wrist. “It’s fine by me.”

“Good. Now go run your show. We’ll be here when you’re done.”

Danny cups her cheek in his hand and kisses the corner of her mouth. “I’ll see you later.” He runs downstairs in time to be on the floor for the show. 

Jordan settles in on the couch and watches them finishing setting up. Rebecca falls asleep before Herb has even made his opening announcement, but Jordan keeps holding her. Rebecca doesn’t wake up even when Jordan laughs a little louder than she meant to at a sketch, even though she saw it on the feed of the dress already. Matt is right about Harriet’s Juliette Lewis.

Jordan hears a cough. Jack is watching her from the door to the box. Jack doesn’t ever ask to hold Rebecca. He just stands in the doorway and looks at them until Jordan gets up and hands her over. “Here,” she says. “She’s been changed and fed, she should be fine. Don’t drop her.”

Jack holds her properly, swaying probably without noticing it. Whatever reason Jack and Marilyn got divorced, Jordan knows that it wasn’t because he didn’t want kids. He lowers his voice. “You took Hallie down pretty hard earlier.”

“Tell me she didn’t call you,” Jordan says. “Between Danny and-.”

Jack interrupts her. “No, I just hear things.” These offices are a gossip factory, Jordan swears. She is not convinced the entertainment press need to do any actual journalism – if they just stood still long enough someone would tell them anything they needed to know. Jack says, “She couldn’t do your job, you know that. Maybe eventually but she’s not there yet.”

“Plus I’m still in my job,” Jordan says.

He inclines his head. “Plus there’s that. Speaking of people in jobs, have you talked to Matt and Danny yet?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Jack looks unconvinced. He kisses Rebecca on the top of her head and passes her back to Jordan before disappearing to do whatever it is he does here on a Friday night. Jordan is not one hundred percent sure he’s ever seen an episode of Studio 60 from start to finish.

She waits until the end of the show before going to find Matt. He’s next to useless while the show is still on the air. Right after the show has finished, he’s still not up to normal conversation, but at least he’s capable of forming sentences that aren’t directly related to whether or not his writing sucked tonight or how much people did or did not laugh. Matt is tearing down the cards from the board. He doesn’t look around but says, “That wasn’t horrible.”

“I thought it was great,” Jordan answers.

“Mmm. We can do better.”

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay?”

“Matt.”

He looks at her. “Yeah? Everything okay?”

“You have a year left on your contract.”

“True. Are you firing me, is that what’s happening here? Because we really can be better next week.” He’s only partway joking, is the worrying thing, but Jordan does know how that feels.

“Are you planning on being here longer than a year?”

Matt sits on his couch. “Are you asking Danny that question?”

Jordan says, “I don’t really need to ask Danny. He’ll want to go where you go, he did already.”

“Honestly?” Matt says. “I think he’ll stay where you stay, and I’ll be wherever that is. I know he’s directing that episode of Nations, and we’ve been looking at trying to get the Tesla movie up and running again next summer during the break, but he’s never been- he’s not talking like we’re going to be anywhere else.”

Jordan knew that already. They haven’t talked about contracts but they have talked about pre-schools and next year’s pilots and trading off on Christmas destinations. But Danny works with Matt and Matt isn’t tied down to any of those things. 

Matt leans forward. “This is home. I’m not saying that we’re not going to want to do other work eventually but for right now... if you get me a new contract I’ll sign it today.” When he makes up his mind to be serious, Matt could convince a person of anything. Jordan doesn’t always agree with him, but she believes his sincerity. The first day she met Matt, he put his own career on hold to go where Danny had to be; she doesn’t think that was a fluke.

There’s a knock at the door before Danny walks in. “This looks serious.”

Matt says, “Jordan just wants to check we’re cool to sign a contract extension.”

“Well you in particular have never been cool, pal, but I can sign whatever.” Danny looks at Jordan. “We can do it tomorrow? They’re missing us down on the stage.” He helps her onto her feet and takes Rebecca in his arms.

Jordan walks downstairs with them both, where the wrap party is already in full swing. She catches Cal’s eye. “Tarps?”

“On everything even remotely valuable, I swear.”

“Okay then.”

Harriet grabs Matt for a slow dance, spinning him away with a laugh.

Danny is holding Rebecca with both of his arms, so Jordan wraps hers around the two of them, moving into the foot-to-foot sway of a dance. Rebecca wakes up, not protesting the noise or movement, but looking around curiously. Jordan steps closer, so she can look over Danny’s shoulder at the same angle and see what Rebecca is watching. Danny smiles at her. “How was your first week back?”

“Better than my first first week here, that’s for sure.” He laughs, and Jordan laughs too, but she means it. She screwed up in front of a reporter, she earned the ire of Rapture Magazine, she fought with Jack about development and she argued with Matt and Danny about content. It’s the same as a year ago but it’s a year later and she is still here. She still picks the wrong fights but she wins more than she loses now and maybe that makes them the right fights. She’s still here, with more than a year to live for, and so Jordan smiles. “So I guess it went pretty well.”


End file.
